Non-compliance

Any business found discharging hazardous material into the sewerage system must cease the discharge immediately and will be requested to rectify the problem.

Businesses whose Trade Waste discharge (discharged without agreement from the Council) exceeds maximum acceptable discharge characteristics as outlined in Schedule 1A of the Trade Waste Bylaw 2015 must also stop this action immediately.

Businesses will be asked to co-operate to resolve a discharge issue and prevent a non-complying, potentially damaging discharge from reoccurring. Christchurch City Council may provide advice on requirements and collect evidence of non-complying discharges such as wastewater samples and photographs.

If any Christchurch City Council infrastructure (such as the sewerage system) has been damaged as a result of malpractice, Council may recover all costs incurred in repairing the damage, including administration costs.

If the business is reluctant to co-operate, it will be subject to a tighter timeframe for compliance and if an improvement has not been achieved within a reasonable timeframe, access to the city sewerage system will be denied or only granted on a batch discharge basis i.e. after an independent laboratory analysis has shown compliance of the batch to be discharged.

Under section 242 (5) of the Local Government Act, a person who is convicted of an offence against a trade waste bylaw and has not made any reasonable attempt to resolve the problem is liable for a fine not exceeding $200,000.